


Twelve Roses

by tamethespaghetti



Series: Blessed [1]
Category: Megalo Box (Anime)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Lots of flowers, M/M, Post-Canon, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26390662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamethespaghetti/pseuds/tamethespaghetti
Summary: Flowers have a way of brightening up a room.Joe visits Yuri in the hospital and brings flowers. When the visits don’t stop and neither do the flowers, Yuri isn’t sure if he should be reading into that.
Relationships: Joe | Junk Dog/Yuuri
Series: Blessed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2148444
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





	Twelve Roses

While Yuri wasn’t entirely surprised to see Joe walk into his hospital room -he’d actually been expecting it for a while now- he was surprised to see the bouquet of flowers in Joe’s hand.

“Pops told me it was something you did when you visited someone in the hospital,” Joe explained, seemingly embarrassed as he placed the bouquet on the small table beside Yuri’s bed.

“Typically, yes,” Yuri replied, although he admittedly had very little experience with such things. He tried to remember the last time he’d been at a hospital visiting someone- had it been Yukiko’s grandfather? Surely Yuri hadn’t brought him flowers then.

“I haven’t been to a hospital in a really long time,” Joe said as if he’d been reading Yuri’s thoughts, “Are you going to be able to leave soon?”

“Relatively soon,” was all Yuri felt like disclosing about the topic. He didn’t even know the full answer to that, since even the doctors weren’t 100% certain on the timeline of his recovery. And as of right now, Yuri wasn’t completely sure how much Joe knew about his condition. There had been an official statement released to the press, but Yuri got the feeling that Joe wasn’t the type of person that kept up to date on current news. Although, a small, hubristic part of Yuri felt that maybe if it was about him, Joe would have looked into it.

“How are you feeling?”

It was an innocent enough question, something that nearly everyone who had stopped by had asked Yuri at one point or another, but he had very much begun to tire of this specific line of questioning. How the hell did they think he was feeling? How would anyone feel if they were put into Yuri’s shoes?

“As good as can be expected,” Yuri replied bluntly.

“Oh. Uh- good,” Joe said, awkwardly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. It reminded Yuri of how Joe moved across the ring. _Dancing_ Yuri had heard Joe’s trainer say during the fight, and Yuri was inclined to agree.

“Well, I don’t want to bother you too much,” Joe said, reminding Yuri that they were here now and not in the ring back then. And before Yuri could say anything akin to _I’ve hardly got anything else to do, so your company is not exactly a nuisance_ Joe was already making his way towards the door.

But before Joe left, he turned back to Yuri and said, in a tone Yuri couldn’t properly decipher, “I could come back again later.”

“I’d like that,” Yuri found himself saying, and before he could take it back or elaborate on what he meant, a brilliant smile had spread across Joe’s face.

“Okay. See ya later,” Joe said with a wave and a crooked smile and then he was gone.

It wasn’t until a nurse had put the flowers in a vase that Yuri realized there was also a little card. The nurse handed it to him -for “safekeeping” as she put it- and on the small square of cardstock were the words _get well soon,_ written in rather messy penmanship that was presumably Joe’s. Yuri opened the lower drawer of the bedside desk and placed the small card along with the rest of the cards he’d received and promptly forgot about it. The flowers, however, stayed in their vase until they started to wilt.

~*~

Much sooner than Yuri expected, Joe showed up again with another bouquet of flowers. Just like last time, Joe set the flowers on the table, although this time he didn’t look quite as embarrassed. And this time, Yuri offered Joe a chair, possibly in hopes that Joe would stay longer, but no one could say for sure and Yuri wasn’t about to look too deeply into it.

Joe pulled said chair beside Yuri’s bed and sat down. He asked Yuri about his day, and how he’d been doing, and for someone who has a strong aversion to small talk, Yuri found that he was rather enjoying himself. Today had been passing by slowly and maybe it was just the company that mattered. And Joe was surprisingly easy to talk to.

“I realized recently,” Joe started, after a lull in the conversation, “that for someone I really wanted to fight, I barely know anything about you.”

“Do you want to?” Yuri asked bluntly because beating around the bush had always seemed like a waste of time.

“Yes?” Joe’s reply sounded more like a question than a concrete answer.

“There’s not much to know,” Yuri said because it was true. Yuri was many things, dedicated, intense, attractive -this wasn’t hubris, it was a fact that had been pointed out to him on many occasions- and above all else, and excellent boxer -or at least, he had been- but he had never been so conceited to think of himself as interesting. He was a simple, straightforward man and up until very recently, he had lived a simple, straightforward life. People didn’t get to know him because there wasn’t much to know.

Joe gave him a disbelieving look, accompanied by a small pout and all in all it made Joe look incredibly young. It was then that Yuri realized he didn’t even know something as simple Joe’s age -which really wasn’t all that important, Joe had won fair and square- and just as Joe knew very little about Yuri, Yuri knew equally as little about Joe. Maybe even less.

“What’s your favorite color?”

Yuri blinked, taken aback. Favorite colors seemed to be a very inconsequential item to know about someone and if he had been interested in learning about someone, _favorite colors_ would have been on the very bottom of the list of question, if it even made the list at all. 

“I don’t have one.”

Another reason why that had been an unnecessary question.

“Huh,” Joe seemed to take a moment to digest this new information, “Mine’s red. Now it’s your turn.”

Yuri blinked again, confused, “To what?”

“To ask a question,” Joe replied, as if had been obvious.

Yuri gave it some thought. He knew himself well enough to know that yes, he did care to learn more about this _Joe_ who had crashed into his life less than half a year ago and changed his life irreparably in more ways than he could have ever known. But what did he want to learn about Joe? What really mattered to Yuri?

“Why did you start boxing?”

It was Joe’s turn to look surprised, which was foolish because they both should have known that any conversation between the two of them would eventually lead to Megalo Box.

“To make money,” Joe answered in an amazingly candid manner, like he wasn’t ashamed of it, and Yuri got the feeling that he wasn’t, “And it was the only thing I was good enough at.”

Yuri nodded, taking his turn to consider this new information. He remembered the dingy ring where he and Joe had first fought, and how it had reeked of stale sweat and desperation. 

“What about you?” Joe asked, “Why did you start?”

“Because I had nothing else,” Yuri replied and Joe didn’t pry any further.

“How old are you Joe?”

“Twenty-two. How about you?”

~*~

When Joe brought another bunch of flowers the third time he came to visit, Yuri realized that maybe he should have told Joe that he didn’t need to bring flowers every time he came by. But then again, no one else had brought him flowers in weeks, and the bouquets did give the room a bit more color, so in the end, Yuri decided not to say anything.

~*~

Mikio brought up the flowers one time he stopped by.

“I didn’t know you were such a fan of flowers Yuri,” he said, inspecting the latest batch of flowers from Joe.

“I’m not,” Yuri replied absentmindedly, more focused on looking over some of the files Mikio had brought for him. And then -much too late- he realized that that probably hadn’t been the best thing to say because now Mikio was no doubt going to pry into it.

“So who’s buying them for you?” Mikio asked predictably, with a shitty glint in his eyes. When Yuri didn’t answer, Mikio sighed and pulled up a chair beside Yuri’s bed. He sat down and Yuri pretended to ignore the fact that Mikio seemed to be putting in real thought into this mystery of the flowers.

“I would have guessed my sister, but things have changed haven’t they?” Mikio said, to which Yuri didn’t bother replying to, “And she would never have picked such a heinous color.”

That made Yuri chuckle. They really were atrocious, so atrocious in fact that Yuri was almost impressed, and had been wondering where Joe had managed to find such a monstrosity. But that hadn’t stopped him from putting them in the vase that now sat on the bedside table as a semi-permanent fixture ever since Joe had started visiting him.

“They’re just flowers,” Yuri finally said, “it’s nothing worth putting any thought into.”

“I guess you’re right,” Mikio said, not believing him in the slightest.

~*~

When Yuri returned to his room from physical therapy there was a new bouquet of flowers sitting on table. He wheeled over to the table and picked up the small piece of paper sitting atop the flowers where _guess i missed you i’ll come back later_ was written in what Yuri now knew with certainty was Joe’s writing.

Yuri frowned. He was disproportionally disappointed that he’d missed Joe’s visit, and it wasn’t just because it had been over a week since Joe had last stopped by. Rehab had not been as going very well recently and his recovery seemed to have hit some sort of plateau, which hadn’t been unforeseen but Yuri felt quite powerless nonetheless. For once, it didn’t matter how much effort he put into it, or how good the technology at his disposal was, because some things just took time and recovery wasn’t something that could be rushed.

And after an unsuccessful bout of physical therapy, Joe’s company would have been a welcomed distraction.

No sooner had Yuri resigned himself to the reality that he was just going to have to be in a sour mood for the rest of the day did the door to his room open and a familiar voice called out, “Oh hey, you’re back.”

Yuri looked over his shoulder to see Joe standing in the doorway and the relief that washed over Yuri was again, seemingly disproportional to the current circumstance. Maybe it was an effect that Joe’s smile had on people.

“Yes, I am,” Yuri replied.

“One of the nurses said you were at physical therapy when I got here, so I took a walk,” Joe explained as he approached Yuri and pulled up a chair to sit down at his usual place across from Yuri, “How’d it go?”

“I’d rather talk about something else,” Yuri replied honestly, not completely concealing his frustration and he didn’t miss how Joe adverted his gaze, looking away from Yuri. There was tension in Joe’s shoulders, in his jaw, and Yuri watched his fist clench. Joe looked upset and Yuri understood why. They had never addressed it, because they didn’t need to, it was all part of the sport, and Yuri was as much to blame as Joe. But that didn’t change the fact that it had been Joe who had delivered the last blow that sent Yuri here and was therefore partially to blame for the fact that Yuri was confined to a wheelchair.

“How’s the gym going?” Yuri asked to try and move the conversation to a more hopeful topic.

Joe took a moment, still looking anywhere but Yuri. His gaze settled on the flowers on the table and when he turned back to face Yuri, he appeared more relaxed and a small, amused smile played on his lips.

Later, when Joe left, Yuri was pleased to discover that he was now in a much brighter mood. That evening, the flowers had found their way into the vase and Yuri had a new bookmark for his book, a small piece of paper with nothing all that important written on it in messy handwriting.

~*~

Yukiko had visited him once since the fight. It had been very early on and Yuri had still been on a significant amount of anesthetics so most of it had been a blur and his memories of the event weren’t concrete.

He wasn’t sure how long she had stayed, if she said anything, or if she had really cried. But he had felt her holding his hand and he remembered trying to hold her back. But no matter how hard he tried, his nerves wouldn’t fire and his muscles couldn’t find the strength to grip her hand back. So his hand had stayed limp and unmoving in her hold.

~*~

“Okay, so what’s your favorite food?”

“Chocolate.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Yuri shrugged, “I don’t have any reason to lie.”

“Huh, I guess not.”

“You?”

“Anything salty.”

“That’s an extremely broad answer. So broad that I’m not sure that even counts as a real answer.”

“I’m not a picky eater.”

“Fair.”

Now it was Yuri’s turn to ask a question. It had been a bit weird to start with, but as most things with Joe, it had quickly become surprisingly easy. They had created their own little routine and it was nice and comfortable. And at the very least, it was something to do.

And no one else had ever spent so much time with Yuri, just talking and getting to know him. It was all so new.

“What do you do for a hobby?”

“Uh, training?”

“Nothing related to Megalo Box.”

“Oof. I’m not sure,” Joe thought about it for a moment and Yuri waited patiently, “I haven’t done it in a while, but I used to go swimming for fun.”

Yuri also hadn’t been swimming in a long time. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time he went swimming. And now -he looked down at his legs- he probably never would.

“I never had much time for hobbies.”

“You have time now. What do you want to do?”

That was a very good question.

~*~

Yuri was seated in his wheelchair by the large window in his room, enjoying the late afternoon sun and deep in conversation with Mikio when Joe chose to stop by, and Yuri was surprised that it had taken this long for _this_ to happen. Not because either of them stopped by all that often, but because it just seemed like something that was bound to happen.

Joe stopped just inside of the doorframe, shocked to see Mikio there, sitting beside Yuri. On the other hand, Yuri noted an amused smile spread across Mikio’s face and a glint of something shitty in his eyes.

“Ah, I didn’t know they let stray dogs into hospitals,” Mikio said haughtily, but it seemed mostly for show as his words lacked any real malice. Yuri had seen Mikio be nasty plenty of times, and this- this wasn’t that. 

“Well it seems like they don’t have standards here, since they let you in,” Joe retorted with a smirk and just as much malice as Mikio had used and Yuri was genuinely glad that the two of them appeared to have forgiven any past transgressions.

Mikio laughed, and seemed to be ready to fire back another rude remark when he noticed the bouquet of flowers in Joe’s hands. He looked shocked for a moment, his eyebrows creating high arches on his forehead, and then looked _extremely_ amused.

“So you’re the one who has been bringing flowers for Yuri,” Mikio said, much too pleased with himself for this particular occasion.

“Yeah,” Joe replied and didn’t say anything else. Yuri watched Joe transfer his weight between his feet, staying on the balls of his feet, his movements fluid and rhythmic, bordering on hypnotic.

Yuri pulled his eyes away from Joe to Mikio and Yuri knew nothing good came from that wicked smile.

“Mikio,” Yuri said, asking the man to spare Joe from any embarrassment and after a moment, Mikio relented. His smile softened and he let out a defeated sigh.

“Look these over and contact me if there’s anything that has to be changed last minute,” he said, patting the files in Yuri’s lap. 

“I will,” Yuri replied and gave Mikio a grateful smile, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Mikio said with a laugh as he got up and stretched, “Now I’ll leave the two of alone.”

Mikio walked by Joe, giving him a wink and Yuri watched Joe visibly shudder. Mikio just laughed again and waltzed out of the room, leaving a very confused and slightly distraught Joe.

“Sorry for interrupting,” Joe said, placing the bouquet on the table, as routine dictated. The vase still had the last bunch of flowers Joe had brought, but they were on their last leg and Yuri was glad to have a replacement, “I could come back later, when you guys are done.”

“It’s fine, we were nearly finished,” Yuri waved the notion away and gestured to the seat Mikio had just vacated, “Come and take a seat.”

“Okay, sure,” Joe nodded and made his way over to sit beside Yuri. With the way Mikio had set up the chair beside Yuri they had been sitting very close -as was needed when two people were looking at the same papers- but now that Joe was here, they were sitting much closer than was necessary.

It wasn’t bad, or uncomfortable, just different.

“The view is nice up here,” Joe said, leaning back in his chair to look out the window behind them. Yuri followed his gaze and looked out the window at the hospital grounds, sparely populated at this hour and covered in the golden, early evening light. It wasn’t anything special.

“I hadn’t seen Mikio in a long time,” Joe remarked, and he sounded uncharacteristically reflective, his voice distant, and Yuri wondered -selfishly- what Joe thought Yuri and Mikio had been discussing, and if Joe was jealous of Mikio.

Yuri didn’t have to tell Joe what the files were about, but he did anyways.

“Mikio has been helping me renovate my home so that it’s more accessible,” Yuri explained, running a hand lightly over the front of the file, “Everything has been completed, so we were just making sure it’s all is ready for me to return home.”

Joe turned his attention back to Yuri, looking surprised and cautiously hopeful and bathed in golden light.

“Does that mean you’ll be going home soon?”

“Yes,” Yuri nodded, “Within the week.”

“Yuri! That’s great!” Joe exclaimed happily and wrapped an arm around Yuri’s shoulders in a sort of sideways-half-hug and Yuri realized that since their fight, that had been the first time Joe had touched him. But right now didn’t seem like the time to read into that.

So instead he smiled and leaned into Joe.

“You should stop by sometime. I’ll give you the address.”

~*~

Mikio was helping Yuri pack up everything from his room when Mikio opened the bottom drawer of the bedside desk and saw the stack of get well soon cards.

“Do you want to keep any of these?” Mikio asked, holding up a few of the cards so Yuri could see what he’s talking about.

“No, you can throw them out,” Yuri said and not a second later he was reminded -by the vase of flowers on the table- of something that he had put with the cards a long time ago.

“Wait a moment,” he corrected himself and Mikio halted his actions, waiting patiently as Yuri wheeled over to the desk and looked through the cards. When he found what he’d been looking for he pulled the small square of cardstock out and didn’t bother trying to hide it from Mikio, who was looking over Yuri’s shoulder.

“I didn’t know stray dogs could write,” Mikio said and Yuri didn’t ask how Mikio knew this had been from Joe. Maybe things had become obvious to Mikio long before Yuri had noticed it.

“Apparently they can,” Yuri replied. He placed the small card in his bag and Mikio tossed the rest.

~*~

Yuri opened his front door to see Joe standing on his porch, the setting sun at his back and a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

“I’m not at the hospital,” Yuri said with a small smile, only slightly teasing, “You don’t have to bring me flowers anymore.”

“Yeah, I know,” Joe shrugged, “Force of habit I guess.”

Yuri nodded and watched Joe teeter from foot to foot, a sign that Yuri had learnt was Joe’s physical manifestation of nervousness. Outside of the ring, of course. For a moment, Yuri let himself appreciate how it felt to understand someone’s movement well enough to read them outside of the ring. He was glad that he had taken the time to get to know Joe as more than just a boxer, but as a person, and as a friend. It had been a long time since Yuri had made a friend, and it had never been like this. 

“Why don’t you come in and we’ll find a vase for those flowers.”

Joe’s face lit up and his smile was blinding.

It turned out that Yuri did not own a vase so they had to settle for the closest thing they could find, a glass pitcher, which worked fine enough. Joe filled it up with water and brought it to the kitchen table for Yuri to place the flowers in it.

As Yuri cut off the ends of the stems he watched Joe look around the house. Joe had taken off his jacket and hung it on the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table so Yuri could note that Joe seemed to have dressed up a bit for this evening. For someone who Yuri had seen wear only thin t-shits or well, no shirt, it was quiet different to see Joe in a dress shirt.

It was a red shirt. Joe’s favorite color if Yuri remembered correctly, and he had to admit, it was a lovely color. Or maybe it just looked good on Joe.

“It’s a really nice place,” Joe said, and then he added with a chuckle, “Probably the nicest place I’ve ever been.”

Yuri shrugged, it was a nice place but only because it was expensive. There was nothing special about it outside of that.

“The view out back is nice,” Yuri said absentmindedly as he arranged the flowers in the vase. They were red roses. Twelve of them. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to read into that.

“The view?” Joe echoed.

“Would you like to see?”

Joe nodded.

The sun had just finished setting and the sky was nearly completely dark except for the glow from the city and a thin line of light blue that just kissed the horizon. It was always much darker here in his backyard than in the city and Yuri greatly appreciated that. It made it much easier to see the stars- ah, well, maybe one of his hobbies was stargazing. He knew a considerable number of the constellations, and he even owned a telescope. He should let Joe know. 

This evening, the clouds were sparse so the stars above them were beginning to appear.

“Joe,” Yuri said into the night and Joe turned his attention from the endless sky to Yuri.

“Yeah?”

“Why did you come to visit me in the hospital?”

Joe let out a long sigh and Yuri gave him some time. To gather his thoughts or whatever Joe had to do prior to answering such a loaded question. Or maybe Joe didn’t think the answer was loaded, maybe to him, the answer was simple.

Yuri waited and looked up at the stars, trying to find any of the constellations he remembered. Ah, yes, there was one right there.

“I’d spent 3 months doing everything I could do to fight you again,” Joe finally said, and Yuri turned to look at him and Joe held his gaze, “Every thing I did, every thought, came back to you. And when it was all done, after that final round, if felt weird all of a sudden that you weren’t there. I had won, I’d done what I needed to do, but it didn’t feel over,” he took a deep breath, “I thought that maybe, if I saw you again, I’d figure out why,” Joe looked back into the night, as if he could find his answer out there, among the stars.

Yuri nodded. He could understand that.

“I had a trainer once, he was the man who first taught me Megalo Boxing, who told me something important,” Yuri paused, running through the memory once again in his head. It had been so many years ago yet Yuri could remember that memory as clearly as if it had been just yesterday. Well, maybe in the years since then, and the countless times Yuri had revisited the memory, the exact words his trainer had told him had been altered, but that hardly mattered because the core message would always hold true.

_“If you’re lucky enough to run into a fighter in your generation who you want to win against from the bottom of your heart, consider yourself blessed. If you ever find someone like that, never let him out of your sight.”_

“Yeah,” Joe breathed that one word and it sounded so heavy, so many thoughts and feelings all contained in one simple, meaningful word, and Yuri knew that they felt the same. Never in his life had Yuri felt so understood.

They were two very different people on so many levels, but they were the same in one aspect that transcended all else. They had both found the one other person out there would they wanted to win against above all else and had done everything in their power to make that fight a reality. On their terms.

They had both been blessed to find each other, it had given them a singular purpose- a singular drive. And that drive had picked these two men and had bound them together.

Now, even after that fight had ended, they were here, together. It wasn’t because they still needed to fight -they both had accepted and welcomed the end of their respective fights- but because nothing had really changed. They were still _that fighter_ to each other and they couldn’t stop now. 

Joe chuckled, a crisp and clean sound that cut through the night, and then vocalized Yuri’s thoughts, proving yet again, that they felt the same, “So does that mean you’re never gonna let me out of your sight?”

Yuri looked up at Joe, and looked into those brown eyes, because he had to make sure that they really, truly, felt the same. 

“Do you want that?”

“Yes,” Joe’s reply came fast and sure, without any hesitation or questioning. And Yuri let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He hadn’t known when it started for him, nor did he know when it had for Joe, but what really mattered was that they were here now.

“The flowers you brought me this evening, they’re very beautiful,” Yuri said, and then added with a knowing smile, “Red roses.”

Joe let out a short laugh, evidently embarrassed, “I didn’t know if that would have been too much. Or if you’d even read into it like that.”

“I did.”

“Heh, good.”

Yuri wasn’t necessarily an impulsive person, but he was known to made big decisions in a fraction of the time that it should take when a certain gearless boxer was involved.

“Do you want to stay the night?” Yuri asked and the smile Joe gave him may have been small, but it lit up the night and put all the stars to shame.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Megalo Box is my fave anime and I can't believe it took me so long to post a fic but here it is. I have so many Joe and Yuri feelings that I just needed to get out. I hope y'all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!


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